Cancer patients are now able to be prescribed investigative drugs if they are terminally ill. Currently this is the only disease to be included, but this may change in the future.
More and more terminal patients choose to be treated at home. What will this mean for patient medicine supplies? Will the medication be issued by the hospital pharmacies or will wholesalers relax their supply of “Hospital only “ medication to retail pharmacies ? Or will these medicines be supplied via the “Healthcare at home“ model ? Time will tell? The problem with the supply by the retail pharmacy is that there may not be a mechanism to record the side effects of the new medicines which can be monitored with the other models. This could be developed using an extension of the New Medicine Service. With these new innovative medications it is imperative that this critical information is not lost. Possibly patients should be issued with forms or yellow cards to report any side effects they experience.